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Ripples

This photograph promoted James Boodley ('53,'54g,'56 Ph.D. Hort) to write a letter.

Part of my goal as editor is to reach out to readers and
connect them to programs or projects, experiences or people. I also hope to
remind us of the part we all play in the college’s mission.

When I sat
down to write this note, I was thinking of the 150-year celebration of the
land-grant tradition. When Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-Grant Act in
1862, he launched the system of public universities that would nurture
generations of students in agriculture, engineering, and science.

But a
handwritten letter on my desk urged me in a different direction.

Our
previous issue (Summer/Fall 2011) ended with a new feature, Then and Now, which
showed a black and white photo of an anonymous man standing in a greenhouse and
wearing a gas mask.

Not long
after the magazine came out, I received a letter from Kent, Ohio. James Boodley
(’53, ’54g, ’56 Ph.D. Hort) identified the man behind the mask. “How far back
in the files did you go to obtain that picture?” he wrote. “It looks very much
like one I posed for to use in a floriculture extension bulletin written by
Professor John G. Seeley. I was his graduate student from 1953 to 1956.”

I gave him
a call and we talked about how he came to be in the greenhouse that day. Money
was tight, he said. He’d been living in a fraternity for several years, when
Dr. Seeley asked if he’d like to live in the greenhouses.

James moved
to a little room with bunk beds in return for keeping an eye on the greenhouses
at night. One job was the 2 am temperature check—one at the greenhouse where he
lived and another a quarter-mile down the road. Those 2 am hikes when winter
winds were howling could be rough, he recalled. Boodley went on become a
faculty member at Cornell until he retired. After I hung up, I thought of the
contributions he made during his career, his connection to Penn State, and his
part in the now 150-year-old experiment Lincoln set in motion.

Not long
afterward, I received an e-mail from Britt Bunyard (’95 Ph.D. Plant Path),
publisher and editor-in-chief of Fungi magazine. He responded to another photo
in that issue—a 20-year-old portrait of Dr. Dan Royse in my Editor’s Note.

“I remember
that photo vividly,” Britt said. “I also remember the cover, an extreme
close-up of a mushroom’s gills. I’m certain I still have that issue in a file
cabinet somewhere. I can say with absolute certainty this story was the
catalyst that led me to working in Dan Royse’s lab.”

Britt saw
that issue while a student at Clemson University when F. William Zettler (’61
B.S. Plant Path), plant virologist at the University of Florida, visited and
brought journals to look at, including the Penn State Agriculture with the
article on mushroom research. Zettler thought he’d find the story interesting.

“He was
right!” wrote Britt. “I sent a letter to Dan requesting information on his research. Four years later,
including hundreds of late nights in Buckhout Lab, I graduated.

“I met my
wife at Penn State. And when I was teaching, one of my students, Michele
Mansfield (’05 Ph.D. Plant Path), went on to Penn State. She left after
graduation but has since returned as a researcher in the plant pathology
department. Talk about a ripple effect!”

The ripple
effect. I realized then that these letters led me back to my original idea for
this note: the brilliant idea of the land-grant system. What Lincoln started
150 years ago is still in motion; it’s now our turn to keep it rolling. Who
knows what galaxy our ripples might reach in another 150 years?